


When it Comes Apart (We're Gonna Have Some Fun, Son)

by warriorpoet



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Granite State
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:09:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warriorpoet/pseuds/warriorpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wishes that his brain would send another voice, another imagined face to keep him company. But, no. It's always Jesse he sees from the corner of his eye, Jesse he hears in the ticking of his wristwatch, Jesse that goads him, prods him, pushes him with the worst things he won't admit to himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When it Comes Apart (We're Gonna Have Some Fun, Son)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [falafelfiction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/falafelfiction/gifts).



On the second week, it starts to sink in.

His first week is full of vengeance and planning, two weeks full of 'tomorrows' that he never quite gets to. The question of what to do fuels him, his desire to carry out the slaughter of Jack and his crew, to avenge what was done to Hank, and to him. The disrespect. The theft. The betrayal.

Walt paces the cabin, thinking out loud, making copious amounts of notes. He keeps track of the days with a crudely drawn calendar on the back of a legal pad. He takes regular breaks to search the static of the television for some kind of signal. All that comes through is choppy French audio from one of the Montreal stations, a picture full of snow. He tries to listen to the news. His French is nonexistent, but he does make out his name. Both of his names. He has no idea what they're saying about him though, what they're saying about anything else.

The second week, the reality of his lack of resources overtakes his fury, his vivid revenge fantasies muted to the impossible dreams they are. Deflated, he sinks to the bed, sits with his head in his hands, stares at the floor and listens as the wind howls its mournful wail for him.

He turns to a clean page on the legal pad and begins to write letters. Letters to Skyler, to Walter Junior and Holly. He explains, he apologizes, he tells them he loves them, the depths of what he's done out of love for them. He's partway through a letter to Marie explaining why her husband died, how Walt tried to stop it, when he crumples the pile of pages and burns them in the wood stove.

He sits, and warms himself, watching as the pages curl and char, crackling away to ash. His words go up in smoke, rising out into the cold night air.

_So, what, you got nothin' to say to me?_

He hears Jesse's voice as clear as if he's in the cabin with him.

"No. I have nothing to say to you."

_You could've let me go. You could've left me under your car until they were gone and taken me with you. You wouldn't be alone now._

"It's your fault Hank's dead. It's your fault I've lost my family. It's your fault I have nothing. Why would I spare you? You turned on me. You went running to Hank when things got too tough, probably crying about how I'd mistreated you. You're pathetic."

_Yeah. Well. I'm dead now, Mr. White. Does that make you feel better? Does that fix everything?_

"No," Walt says to the empty room.

_Nah. Didn't think so._

***

He wakes sometimes, in the pitch dark of night, acutely aware of the dryness of the atmosphere. He pinches the skin on the back of his hand and it stays tented, papery and thin.

He remembers those nights in the RV, bundling himself in Jesse's layers of clothes, the deflated skin of the blowfish. The cold, dry air, their sunken eyes and parched lips, the dull ache of exhaustion and hunger and stress. Jesse would shake out his fleece blanket to watch the static sparks fly in the darkness. Walt would warn him against starting a fire, just to get him to stop the restless, rustling movement. He overdid it, and Jesse sat on the cot, perfectly still, afraid to move, afraid to touch anything should he spontaneously combust. 

Walt had felt instantly guilty, knew that the complete lack of movement would only make Jesse colder, would only magnify his pain. He relented, explained that he'd only been joking, explained positive and negative charges, the movement of electrons, and soon Jesse had rolled his eyes and lain down on the cot, and sooner still he had finally drifted off to sleep. 

He remembers when he coughed up blood, the dark smear across his shaking hand. He remembers Jesse coming to look for him, to check on him, and how Walt had looked up and seen him there, backlit by the sun, dressed all in black, his own personal angel of death.

Then Walt sees the unwelcome sight of Jesse on his knees on a similar patch of desert, Jack's gun to his head, the plea in his eyes, his lips moving silently: _C'mon, man. No. No._

Walt sits up, rubs the skin down on the back of his hand, and straightens his cheap polyester blankets, watching the sparks of lightning scatter across the bed.

***

In the half light of dawn, Walt thinks he sees him sprawled in one of the chairs across the room.

"I am sorry, Jesse," he murmurs.

_'He crossed me. Family or no.' You said that, right? You were talking about me then, weren't you?_

"Yes. I was."

_Has it sunk in for you, yet? What you've done?_

"Why did you do that to me?"

_Why did you do that to **me**? I would've done anything for you. I **did** do anything for you._

"Then why didn't you leave? Why didn't you just leave town when I needed you to?"

_Same reason you couldn't let me live. I loved you and you fucked me over. Stings, don't it?_

"Yes, it does."

The shadows blur through Walt's tears, as though Jesse is sitting forward, elbows on his knees. 

_They didn't make it quick. Or painless. I told them everything, and they still kept torturing me. Then Todd put me in a barrel while I was still breathing. Hydroflouric acid, just like you showed him with that kid on the dirt bike. And with Mike. 'Cept I wasn't dead until it started burning my skin off and I screamed and screamed, and Todd wouldn't stop –_

"Enough," Walt growls through his quickened breath. "That didn't happen. They wouldn't do that. They shot you in the back of the head, and that was that. I told them. Quick and painless."

_Yeah, and you told them not to come when you saw me roll up with Hank and Gomez. And how did that work out?_

"I told them you were like family."

_But I crossed you. Remember?_

"I'm _sorry_ , Jesse."

Light bleeds through the window as the sun rises, and the shadows sort themselves out into shapes that aren't Jesse.

***

Ed returns after a month, just as promised, with a pile of Albuquerque Journals. It's a heady rush, the combination of human contact and information, and manages to banish the voices in Walt's head to the far corners of the earth, away, somewhere, over the hills.

Walt hands over the list of things he needs, asks Ed to please check up on Skyler and the kids for next time, see where they're living, see if they're all right. 

"Has Jesse Pinkman been found?" Walt asks as Ed is walking back to his truck. "His body?" 

It's a question he shouldn't ask, one he can surely find an answer to in the stack of newspapers, one which likely has no answer because there is no reason for Jack or Todd to let the body be found. But the impulse to somehow delay Ed's departure, to have someone here to stave off what's sure to come once he's gone, is too great to ignore.

Plus, he can't shake the image of Jesse alive as Todd pours the hydrofluoric acid. If he knew that Jesse's body had been found dumped on a roadside somewhere with only a gunshot wound and the injuries from a beating, it would be a relief. It might be enough of a relief to silence the Jesse he hears in his head.

Ed regards him closely for a long moment, a kind of scrutiny Walt isn't used to under normal circumstances, but finds particularly uncomfortable after a month in isolation.

"As far as anybody's saying, he's missing. Presumed on the run. It's all in the papers."

"Right. Thank you."

Walt trudges back to the cabin and stands in the snow until the rumble of Ed's truck fades away.

***

He takes to the newspapers with a pair of scissors, keeping his lines perfectly straight, enjoying the feeling of having a task to focus on. There are long-lens photographs of Skyler looking pale and drawn, Marie stoic in black. There are official government ID photographs of Hank and Steve, and a picture of Jesse that, by the way he's smiling and the indication that someone has been cropped out of the picture, was likely provided by Andrea.

Walt tries to recall the last time he saw Jesse smile. He struggles. The early days of their Vamonos operation, he guesses, the long days and nights they spent in other people's homes, talking about how far they'd come, how much they'd survived together. Perhaps it was at the train, their victory celebration. Jesse's earned pride in himself. Before the boy on the dirt bike.

But, no. Later than that. The memory slams into Walt and he's suddenly nauseated and trembling. Jesse had smiled, a faintly triumphant upturn of his mouth, as Hank read the Miranda rights. Jesse had smiled, and then spat in Walt's face.

He shoves the article with Jesse's picture to the side, crumpling and ripping the newsprint.

As he hangs the clippings on the wall above his rickety twin bed, Walt carefully tapes the tear back together. He touches the image of Jesse's face, and his fingers come away lightly smudged with ink.

***

He shouts to the walls, his voice echoing on the steel of the wood burner.

"I defended you. Did you know that? You tried to set fire to my house, you threatened my family, and I _defended_ you when everybody else said you should be dead. Saul. Skyler. Jesus, Jesse, had I known you were working with Hank, I would have been first in line to kill you myself."

_But instead, what? You were gonna explain everything? What were you gonna say that day in Civic Plaza, if I'd showed up?_

"The truth."

_And what's that? Fucking say it already._

"That I..."

Walt falls silent. The fire pops and crackles.

_What? That you put someone I care about at risk so you could get ahead? You used me on a gamble?_

"I knew the boy would be fine. I was safe about it. He wasn't in any danger."

_You didn't, though. You thought for a second there that Brock could've died. You got lucky and then you got off on it, like you planned it that way all along. I know you did. Say it, bitch._

"Fine, I admit that it was a risky tactic. Happy?"

_Would you have told me that?_

"No. I wouldn't have."

_And you wonder why I wanted to burn your goddamn house down. There's a reason you defended me, asshole. You knew I had a right to want to hurt you._

"I defended you because I cared about you."

_And you wouldn't have told me that, either, would you? Nah. Instead you fucking call up Todd and go, 'Hey man, cap his ass, but try not to make it hurt.' Lotta love there. I totally see that now._

Walt opens the wood stove and shoves another log on the fire, angrily prodding the flames until sparks shower over his feet.

***

He's rarely hungry, but often finds himself preparing food because it's something to keep his hands and mind occupied. He peels potatoes and carrots, dices butternut squash, cuts steak into strips, heats beef stock, melts butter, browns onions. It's a basic stew cobbled together from what Ed brings him each month, and he can never make it through an entire bowl when it comes time to eat.

The preparation, though, the act of following a procedure, of measuring and mixing basic ingredients to elicit a desired result... Walt keeps feeling a close warmth at his shoulder, as though Jesse is hovering over him, observing, ready to step in as his second set of hands should Walt give the slightest unspoken signal. He can trick himself for a moment, that Jesse is there again as an extension of his body and mind, working together with him in finely tuned tandem, partners engaged in a perfectly in-step waltz.

Walt will turn or move to the side, ready to begin the dance, only to return to the reality of the empty cabin, his two acres of snowy nothing.

The stew keeps well, and stacked containers of the stuff begin to accumulate in the freezer.

***

He takes walks around the cabin, sometimes going as far as the gate to the outside world, standing before the snow-covered road, waiting for a plan to reveal itself. It never does, though, and he trudges back to walk circles around the cabin. The freezing air cuts through his lungs, reminds him just how fragile his health is as he wheezes puffs of steaming breath.

"Life is fragile," he says out loud, and, not for the first time, thinks about what death might feel like. "What's it like, Jesse?" he asks the snowdrifts and the trees.

_Lonely._

"So it's like this?"

_Yeah. And you might as well be dead for all the good you're doing here. What've you got, Walt? Nothing. No-one._

"I'm not giving up. I'm not like you."

_This is your idea of not giving up? Yo, you shoulda just turned yourself in, you prick. 'Least then your old lady wouldn't have a fucking trial date coming up. They'd have you. Shit, you could've tried to strike a bargain with me. Keep me from Jack in exchange for me going to jail and taking the fall for you. I'd be alive then. I might've done it, y'know, if the only other option was getting beaten to death by psycho Nazi fucks._

"You would never have done that."

_Nah, you'd never have done it, 'cause you couldn't stand the credit going to me. Admit it._

Walt looks back at the churned up tracks his feet have left, a deep scar in the blank snow. 

"You're right. I could never let you take credit. Especially after what you did to me. To Hank. Letting you die was the right thing to do."

_Guess I'll see you in hell, then, asshole. Then neither of us will be alone._

It would be easy, Walt thinks, to just rest in the snow. Just rest, and sleep, and let nature take its course.

The freezing air cuts through him as he walks back to the cabin, and once inside, his flesh burns from the sting of numb nerves coming back to life.

***

He sees different forms of Jesse all the time. When he's sleeping, when he's awake, when he hasn't moved for hours and he's not sure if he's still breathing, until he coughs, and then, yes, he's still alive. Such as it is.

Sometimes he sees Jesse as he was at seventeen, when he went through some kind of goth-punk-metal phase for a few weeks and wore dark eyeliner and ripped black jeans, silver studs on his shirt, his hair perpetually unbrushed. He showed up to class one day with that tattoo on his wrist, showing it off to his classmates, slapping it loudly and complaining, _It itches Mr. White. Can't you chemistry me up something to fix it? Then I'll be quiet. And you might tell us something we can use for, like, the first time ever._

He sees Jesse as he was not long after they met for the second time, the loud oversize clothes, his swollen half closed eye, pleading with him: _Mr. White, I'm not good with dead bodies_. When he left Jesse to get supplies to take care of what was left of Emilio and came back to find him still frozen in the hallway, staring at that corrosive puddle of flesh, his hand twitching, involuntarily flitting in and out of a fist. 

There are times when Jesse materialises on the floor of the cabin, slurring through a heroin nod, tear-stained and broken and painfully aware of what he's trying to escape. His hands reach out to Walt as he passes, pacing the cabin, and sometimes Walt feels the grip of his fingers, feels Jesse crawl into bed beside him, sobbing into his shoulder, hands knotted at the small of Walt's back.

He sees Jesse in stark primary colors: the vacant blue of his eyes, the harsh caution signal of yellow Tyvek, the blood red of the floor, all reflected in the shiny surfaces of the superlab mixing tanks. Sees him chastised, staring down at his shoes to hide the defiant set of his jaw as Walt tells him he needs to study harder, needs to pay more attention, needs to not screw things up for once in his goddamn worthless junkie life. Sees him clean, just out of rehab, his eyes clear and hard. Sees him flinch in shock as Walt shoots a man in the head and tells him to run. He sees him with his newly shaved head and an aura of self-imposed chaos. Sees him with glassy eyes, angry and hurt, a gun in his hand. Sees him on his knees in To'hajiilee, accepting death, begging for life, looking back in wounded betrayal.

Sometimes he sees Jesse happy. The way his face would light up on the rare occasion Walt portioned out some meager praise, the way he crowed over Walt's meth on their first cook together, the way he exuded joy at the news of Walt's remission, the way he beamed with pride at showing off his almost-family the night Walt stayed over for dinner.

That is the Jesse he often tries to conjure up on purpose. He tells himself that if that is the only way Jesse exists now, as a happier version of himself in Walt's memory, then perhaps he did Jesse a favour by sending him to die.

***

Sometimes he dreams of killing Jesse himself, and wakes up with a start, drenched in sweat and unable to breathe.

***

He wishes that his brain would send another voice, another imagined face to keep him company. He wants a twenty-three year old Skyler to climb into bed with him and dream about their future that never was. He wants to sit and talk with Junior, tell him how to take care of what's left of his family. He wants to see Holly at eighteen, learn what kind of woman she'll be, to fill with pride at whatever the result is. Hell, he'd even take talking about the investigation with Hank, each telling the other where they'd gone wrong.

But, no. It's always Jesse he sees from the corner of his eye, Jesse he hears in the ticking of his wristwatch, Jesse that goads him, prods him, pushes him with the worst things he won't admit to himself. 

He thinks of his family constantly, of course, but it's always Jesse who enters his mind, his space, without permission.

It's Jesse that he assigns the ache in his chest to. That Jesse betrayed him. That he had to make the decision for Jesse to die. That there'd been no other option.

And Jesse argues with him about the truth of that, too, long into the days and nights.

***

Those days in the middle of the months when Ed comes bearing newspapers and groceries and thin lines of connection to who Walt thought he was are temporary stoppers to the constant drip of his memory.

The news is about Skyler's impending trial now, and the latest on the search for Heisenberg. They're full of false reports of sightings, like Walt has become Elvis, or Bigfoot, or Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich. Another national amusement. Mentions of the vanished DEA agents and their informant are postscripts, tacked on to other items. Still looking. They never flat out say that the three men are dead, that hope has been given up.

Walt suspects it has. He thinks of Marie, then moves on to the next day's paper.

There are reports of high purity blue meth still being sold on the streets, rampant speculation that Heisenberg remains at work. Jack must be ambitious, continuing on with 70 million dollars of Walt's hard earned money. Perhaps Lydia didn't want to kill the operation. Her buyout demands were too big, she needed to satisfy the buyers in Europe. Always some shadowy third parties needing to be paid off. They must have used Jesse to train Todd before they killed him, help him get the purity up, get everything they needed out of him before finishing the job Walt set them to do. 

He imagines a different end for Jesse, now, shot in the back of the head as he finishes breaking up the product. Crumpling to the ground, mallet falling from his limp hand. It isn't such a bad way to go, really, for Jesse to die doing the only thing he'd really been good at, the only thing he'd worked at and dedicated himself to. It's an end Walt can be satisfied with. This one takes over in his mind, erases the images of Jesse, broken and bloodied, his face a pulpy mess. His throat cut from behind. Suspended from a wooden beam, used as a human punching bag for Jack's crew. His skin burning in a barrel. 

No. Jesse had a good death. Walt is sure of it, now.

He's not sure why it matters.

***

Sometimes he dreams of Jesse killing him. He sleeps through those dreams, most of the time.

***

Walt is weak and delirious, soaking the sheets through with sweat that chills instantly.

Jesse's voice is droning in the air around his ears. He thinks it's Jesse's voice. He can't be sure he really remembers with complete accuracy. It's at least a close approximation.

And Jesse's there, sitting there, on the cluttered counter, his heels banging against the cabinet. Walt can hear that too, the dull repetitive thumping of his rubber-soled sneakers on the wood. 

_Remember after I got out of rehab, and I was sleeping on your couch in that crappy apartment?_

"Yes. How could I not? Skyler had thrown me out. There was... it was after the plane crash."

_You'd sit with me, sometimes. We'd watch TV. You were so surprised I wanted to watch the Discovery Channel. Like you'd never heard me talk about shit I'd seen on there, like, a million times before._

"It's not as educational as it used to be."

_Whatever. I just remember you weren't totally on my case then. It was actually kind of... nice? We weren't cooking anymore, but I thought maybe we could almost be friends or something after that. That we'd keep in touch. Keep looking out for each other. Even if we weren't in business. But... it wasn't about me, really, was it? You were trying to make up for what you did to Jane. The crash made you feel bad about it._

"No. No, Jesse. I did it for you."

Jesse scoffs and Walt drifts on a brief moment of silence.

_When you want family to die, it's not easy or clean. Easy and clean's how you kill a stranger._

"What are you talking about?"

_You said you wanted them to do me quick and painless. No fear. That's not how you want family to die. If you've got it in you to kill someone you care about that much, then it gets messy. Crimes of passion, or whatever. You know, you – you hold them down and bash their brains in. Stab 'em in the heart. Get your hands dirty. It's close contact. It's not farming them out to scumbag Nazi hitmen._

"Are you implying that because I wanted you to have a painless death that I didn't care about you?"

_If you meant it, you would've done it yourself. Alls I'm saying._

"Are you _actually_ disappointed that I didn't kill you myself?"

Jesse looks at him, looks right through him.

_I'm not anything anymore, Mr. White._

His eyes snap open and he feels something fluttering on his chest. One of the newspaper clippings, crumpled from his tossing and turning, stained with his sweat.

Walt picks it up and squints through the darkness at Jesse's smiling face.

He crushes the paper in his hand, puts his hand under the pillow, and tries to sleep.

***

Walt stands in snow almost up to his knees. He tips his face to the weak sun, his bones shivering inside their wasting cover of skin.

"I did it for me, Jesse," he admits quietly, his words disappearing on the vapour of his breath. "But I don't know how I would have done it without you."

Jesse has nothing to say to him.


End file.
